Thursday, November 6, 2014

Apologetic Apology courtesy of a fellow who calls himself as "Revelation."

I forgot who said this quote. All I know is that he was once a Nazi officer (John, I think this quote was uttered by Goebbles, the propaganda minister of Der Fuehrer of this earth in contrast to Der Fuehrer of the heavens.

- Praise da Lawd! - Mr. James Litton...Thanks for reminding me)

I really don’t care about who said this quote, but I really like what the quote says, “A lie told many times becomes the truth.”

The quote seems to fit Christianity very nicely.

I have seen a lot of Christian apologetic work, other than those written in social groups. They seem to be saying the same thing over and over and over. This message from a certain “Revelation” is not an exception.

[Revelation wrote on Fri, 12 October 2007 09:07] Does anyone know when this debate on God's existence started? Why did I ask this question? Because I think It was only after the "silent years" (400 years of silence in between the end of the OT and beginning of the NT) that this argument arose (or perhaps even after the death of the disciples). Why? Because signs and wonders could have ceased during these silent years and so people become skeptic about God since signs and wonders prove that God really exists.

Before I start, I’m just wondering: If god is all-powerful and timeless and if god is immutable, then why will his signs and wonders could have ceased during Revelation’s so-called ‘silent years”? Maybe Revelation would like to clarify this.

So when humans became skeptical about god?

When did humans start to question the existence of the gods?

It started when men invented the gods. There are many factors in which doubt about the gods arose in the inquiring minds. Some notice that these manufactured gods reflect the culture in which they come from. Majority are men because the cultures that created them were patriarchal in nature. These gods were intensely patriotic and they abhor what their creators detest. They required flattery, worship and demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. Most of them were satisfied with sacrifice and the smell of innocent blood. Yet no one really saw a god speaking for its behalf. In the silence of these gods, the tribal chiefs, shamans and priests assume themselves to be the rightful speakers and messengers and, and worst... as enforcer of God’s laws. Some enterprising men even declared themselves as self-professed ambassador of these gods giving themselves the titles of prophets, disciples and apostles. Some even produced “holy scriptures” as testimony of covenant between these invented gods and the ignorant masses. To protect the existence of this invisible Ruler, they produced a wall of superstition to safeguard the gods from the prying mind. They created stories of curses and blessings, of rewards and punishment to put skeptical inquiry at bay. But they never anticipated that amidst the fog of ignorance and superstition there are freethinkers who began to doubt their claims.

Contrary to “Revelation’s” claims, skepticism in the existence of gods started earlier than 445 BCE and 63 BCE, his so-called “silent years”. Prior to the Persian and Greek rule and the Roman conquest of Palestine, debates about the existence of the gods have been raging in other nations and cultures. For something better to blame after those pre-historical event as presented earlier, we can say that the dispute about god’s existence started in India, regarded as one of the earliest civilization in the world. The very earliest Indian religious writings, the Vedas, date from about 1500 BCE and in the Sanskrit epics considered as the oldest philosophical literature in the world, has some of the earliest information of materialist doctrine. Tradition attributes the Lokayata doctrine to a sage called Brihaspati, who, along with another figure called Charvaka (or Charvak), were the most outstanding proponents of materialism. The name, Lokayata, means "the view held by the common people", "the system which has its base in the common, profane world", "the art of sophistry", and also "the philosophy that denies that there is any world other than this one".

Buddhism is the most tangible proof of the debate about god and its absence. Buddhism was founded in India about 500 BCE. Although Buddhism never questioned the existence of a god, Buddha conceived of a religion that had the absence of a Godly concept and was rather based on humanistic principles, logically formulated, illustrating the basic human values of life. Buddhism doesn’t believe in the existence of an eternal omnipotent God or God-head who is the creator and ordainer of the world and who can miraculously save others.

Somewhere in Europe, there are Greek philosophers who are skeptical in the existence of the gods before Persia invaded Palestine. Thales of Miletus...the first man whom the name of “wise” was given, was known to think of things without relying too much on magic and the gods. For example, Thales claimed that the basis of all things is water. This was a great advance for human thought. True, the Babylonians had long before put forward the idea that all things came from water. In their Creation myth, this was the model for the Hebrew story of the Creation in the first book of Genesis. "All lands were sea," says the legend, until Marduk, the Babylonian creator, separated the land from the sea. The difference here is that there is no Marduk, no divine creator standing outside nature. Instead, for the first time, nature is explained in purely materialist terms, that is, in terms of nature itself.

I give Thales the credit of being the first scientific naturalist thinker in 585 BCE.

The anatomists and the materialists have questioned the believers’ god-claim before the Bible was compiled in Rome. The world outlook of the Greek atomists was naturally materialist. They were self-confessed atheists. There is no room for god in this view of the universe. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, born about 500 BCE, in Asia Minor, in the period of wars with the Medes, and the rise of Athens under Pericles. He believed that the sun was a mass of molten elements as also were the stars, although these were too far away for their heat to be felt. The moon was nearer and made of the same material as the earth. The light of the moon was a reflection of the sun, and eclipses were caused by the moon blocking off the sun’s light. Like Socrates later, he was accused of atheism, probably accurately since he scarcely mentions religion in his cosmology. He was a far more original and profound thinker, who had a tremendous impact on philosophy in Athens.

The idea that matter consists of an infinity of tiny particles, invisible to the senses, represents a most important generalization, and a transition to the atomic theory, that remarkable anticipation of modern science, first expounded by Leucippus (c. 500-440 BCE) and Democritus (c. 460-370 BCE.).

Democritus believed that we get the constant changes which are everywhere to be seen in nature, and which give rise to the transitoriness of worldly things. There was an infinite number of worlds "born and dying," not created by god, but arising and being destroyed out of necessity, in accordance with natural laws.

This proves that skepticism in the existence of the gods came earlier that what Revelation have imagined.

Revelation: And so, in the course of time, all the miraculous deeds of God in the Old Testament were interpreted by many as fairy tales. But I don't think this is true with the Israelites - the chosen nation of God. I believe that through "oral tradition," believers in Israel knew that the God of the Bible is true with or without manifestations of signs and wonders.

If a certain culture believes their myth is true, it doesn’t follow that the myth is true. Mythology is the reflection of how humans try to explain his ignorance. Take the case of the Israelites. They believe that the heavens are covered by a solid vault which they called a “requa”. They also believe the sun and the other planets revolve around the Earth. We now know that this isn’t so.

The word “Chosen People of God” isn’t really that special....Every culture in this planet believes that they are god’s favorite pet dog! It is quite common. We call it ethnocentrism.

Revelation: Also, another thing that influenced others from denying the existence of God is the birth of scientific theories which came later after the "silent years" (especially the Big-bang Theory and Theory of Evolution). Unfortunately, these theories have many loopholes. Like in Big-bang, scientists could not identify the actual cause of its explosion. The usual answer we will get is "accident". And it is insufficient because of its result - intelligent design. The simple question is, "How can accident come up with a very intelligent and intrinsic design of the universe and everything that's in it?" Because of this, some of scientists over the years came to the open and cannot but make a conclusion that God is the creator.

Majority of these responses are base on the lack of knowledge of the believer on scientific terms such as “Big Bang and Theory of Evolution”. The best thing to do here is to flatten the ignorance out so that we may understand the following terms...before we start mud throwing.

The Big Bang doesn't necessary means an explosion, like a BANG! It is an expansion and it is not a singular event but a series of different events. I think Revelation is really not very aware of this...that’s why he boldly claimed that “scientists can’t identify the actual cause of its explosion."

Since we now know that it’s an expansion. Let see, what cause this expansion? Thanks to the following scientists, Stephen Hawkins, Andre Vilenkin and Alex Linde to name a few, we now have the scientific theory called Wave Function of the Universe. According to this theory, there is a scientific law of nature called Wave Function of the Universe that implies that it is highly probable that the universe with our characteristics will come into existence without a cause. Hawkins’ theory is base on assigning numbers of possible universes. All the numbers cancel out except for a universe with features that our universe possesses, such as containing intelligent organism. This remaining universe has a very high probability –near 100% - of coming into existence uncaused. That means according to scientists, the universe is an uncaused cause and not as an “accident” as Revelation presupposed.

There is also a natural explanation of how the Big Bang started. By means of a random quantum fluctuation the universe “tunneled” from pure vacuum to what is called a false vacuum, a region of space that contains no matter or radiation but is not quite nothing. The space inside a bubble of false vacuum is curved, or wrapped, and a small amount of energy is stored in that curvature, like the potential energy of a strung bow. This ossensible violation of energy conservation is allowed by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for sufficient small time intervals.

The bubble then inflated exponentially and the universe grew by many orders of magnitude in a tiny fraction of a second. As the bubble expanded, its curvature energy transformed (naturally) into matter and radiation. Inflation stopped, and the more linear big bang expansion we now experience commenced. – As the universe cooled, its structure spontaneously froze out – just like how water vapor froze and create those unique snow flake patterns.

Does the universe show proof of a so-called intelligent design?

Let see...

1. No planet travels in a perfectly circular orbit.

Each planet’s orbit has a different shape from all the other planets’, and no planet even maintains a constant distance from the sun. Moreover, the sun is not at the center of any planet’s orbit.

2. Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist who fathered the study of quantum mechanics, said that the behavior of subatomic particles was often chaotic and unpredictable. Bohr argued that our everyday notions of structure, order and cause-effect do not apply at the atomic level.

3. Laws of nature are always violated at sub atomic level.

4. There is also the problem due to mathematical calculations—first performed by Johannes Kepler in the early 1600’s. It reveal that the number of successful orbital-speed-orbital-distance combinations is virtually unlimited, rather than minuscule. Creationists cannot reasonably argue that the number of successful orbital-speed-orbital-distance combinations is tiny, when we directly observe, throughout the universe, orbital-speed-orbital-distance combinations in the hundreds of millions!

5. The problem of billions of stars and galaxies in the universe. What are they for? What is their purpose to mankind? Bible believers respond that God created the heavens to attest His majesty and to provide man with a beautiful night sky. Such an argument—already highly dubious—disintegrates further when we consider that all planets and stars visible to the naked eye are located within our own Milky Way galaxy. Of what benefit to mankind are the other hundred-billion galaxies?

6. The current tilt planet Earth’s axis of 23.5 degrees is temporary and variable, and will shift our planet into a new Ice Age within a few millennia. The seasons, as we know them today, will be unrecognizable, as during the last Ice Age, which ended 11,500 years ago.

(Source: Skeptical Inquirer July/August 1999. Vol 23, No. 4

Science Shams and Bible Bloopers by David Mills pp. 248 – 252)

Also, it seems Revelation is in the dark when he said, “...that influenced others from denying the existence of God is the birth of scientific theories which came later after the "silent years" (especially the Big-bang Theory and Theory of Evolution)”. For your information, the Theory of Evolution is not really a very new concept. Contrary to Christian belief, Democritus have thought that life form emerge from a simple primitive source. That was roughly around 420 BCE, 825 years before the Bible was compiled by Jerome in 405 CE.

Revelation: As to the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin, the advancement of technology finally resolved this case as fallacious. Thanks to the research of Michael Behe!

Here’s another fancy claim of wishful thinking. Technology hasn't resolved the theory of evolution as fallacious. I may even thank technology for providing us more advanced tools for the study of molecular biology, genetics and comparative anatomy thus giving us better support on the evidence for macroevolution.

Can I ask for a copy of any scientific or Biology journal that says Michael Behe have revolutionized Evolutionary Biology?

Are you familiar with Behe’s research @ Revelation or did you just copy-pasted your thread from some obscure “Born-Again” Christian internet site? Oh well...

In 1986 Michael Behe, an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University, published a book called Darwin’s Black Box in which he introduce his concept of Irreducible Complexity. According to this concept, the main biochemical challenge to -Darwin comes from irreducibly complex systems. His good example was the bacterial flagellar motor.

The following came from Richard Dawkin’s book The God Delusion, to give us a good portrait of Michael Behe’s so-called “scientific research”:

Without a word of justification, explanation or amplification, Behe simplyproclaims the bacterial flagellar motor to be irreducibly complex. Since heoffers no argument in favour of his assertion, we may begin by suspecting afailure of his imagination. He further alleges that specialist biologicalliterature has ignored the problem. The falsehood of this allegation wasmassively and (to Behe) embarrassingly documented in the court of Judge John E.Jones in Pennsylvania in 2005, where Behe was testifying as an expert witness onbehalf of a group of creationists who had tried to impose 'intelligent design'creationism on the science curriculum of a local public school - a move of'breathtaking inanity', to quote Judge Jones (phrase and man surely destined forlasting fame). (This was from the famous Dover Trial – John the Atheist)This wasn't the only embarrassment Behe suffered at the hearing, as weshall see. The key to demonstrating irreducible complexity is to show that noneof the parts could have been useful on its own. They all needed to be in placebefore any of them could do any good (Behe's favorite analogy is a mousetrap).In fact, molecular biologists have no difficulty in finding parts functioningoutside the whole, both for the flagellar motor and for Behe's other allegedexamples of irreducible complexity. (The God Delusion p 131)

Another ofBehe's favorite alleged examples of 'irreducible complexity' is the immunesystem. Let Judge Jones himself take up the story:In fact, oncross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim thatscience would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. Hewas presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, andseveral immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system;however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence ofevolution, and that it was not 'good enough.'Behe, undercross-examination by Eric Rothschild, chief counsel for the plaintiffs, wasforced to admit that he hadn't read most of those fifty-eight peer-reviewedpapers. Hardly surprising, for immunology is hard work. Less forgivable is thatBehe dismissed such research as 'unfruitful'. It certainly is unfruitful if youraim is to make propaganda among gullible laypeople and politicians, rather thanto discover important truths about the real world. After listening to Behe,Rothschild eloquently summed up what every honest person in that courtroom must have felt: Thankfully, there are scientists who do search for answers to thequestion of the origin of the immune system . . . It's our defense againstdebilitating and fatal diseases. The scientists who wrote those books andarticles toil in obscurity, without book royalties or speaking engagements.Their efforts help us combat and cure serious medical conditions. Bycontrast, Professor Behe and the entire intelligent design movement are doingnothing to advance scientific or medical knowledge and are telling futuregenerations of scientists, don't bother. (This account of the Dover trial,including the quotations, is from A. Bottaro, M. A. Inlay and N. J. Matzke,'Immunology in the spotlight at the Dover "Intelligent Design" trial', NatureImmunology 7, 2006, 433-5.)As the American geneticist Jerry Coyne putit in his review of Behe's book: 'If the history of science shows us anything,it is that we get nowhere by labelling our ignorance "God".' Or, in the words ofan eloquent blogger, commenting on an article on intelligent design in theGuardian by Coyne and me, Why is God considered an explanation for anything?It's not - it's a failure to explain, a shrug of the shoulders, an 'I dunno'dressed up in spirituality and ritual. If someone credits something to God,generally what it means is that they haven't a clue, so they're attributing itto an unreachable, unknowable sky-fairy. Ask for an explanation of where thatbloke came from, and odds are you'll get a vague, pseudo-philosophical replyabout having always existed, or being outside nature. Which, of course, explainsnothing. (Note: J. Coyne, 'God in the details: the biochemical challenge toevolution', Nature 383, 1996, 227-8. The article by Coyne and me, 'One side canbe wrong', was published in the Guardian, 1 Sept. 2005:http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/ feature/story/0,13026,1559743,00.html. Thequotation from the 'eloquent blogger' is at http://www.religionisbullshit.net/blog/2005_09_01_archive.php. (The God Delusion pp133-134)

Speaking of Michael Behe’s mousetrap analogy, he claimed that Irreducible Complexity can be compared to the humble mousetrap. The mousetrap consists of five components, the wooden platform (base), the hammer (to crush the mouse), the spring (to provide force to the hammer), the catch (to sense the mouse) and the holding bar (to hold the hammer). The mousetrap is irreducibly complex because every component is required for the system to work. If one par is missing the trap will fail to work. That means a simple step by step improvement is impossible. VIOLA! Evolution is impossible.

Fortunately, John McDonald (A Reducibly Complex Mousetrap) demonstrated that the mousetrap can still function even with only one part! Don Stoner also showed how Behe’s mousetrap could evolve in Darwinian step-by-step fashion from a single box and stick trap, thus justifying Darwinian evolution.

Revelation: God's culprits were able to make circulations of materials which intend to distort the truth in the Bible. And those who were not deep in God's Word were easily swayed by this devilish work. Some of those materials are myths which were copied from the Hebrews/Israelites later known as Christians (Acts 11:26). Others are misinterpretations about God and the Bible.

Ah...a statement of a fanatic.

There is nothing worse than a fanatic, who loves to sweep the dusts under the rug.

Have you forgotten Mr. Joey De Leon’s quote? “Explain before you complain.” Before you whine and grumble that your Bible is being distorted by God’s culprit maybe its best that you explicate why such discrepancies are found in a supposed to be “God inspired book”. Calling critics names won’t make criticism go away.

Skepticism is not the devil’s work, even the Bible say that the devil believes in a god. It is but natural to an inquiring, rational mind to test the validity of scriptural claims and the Bible is not an exception. Remember free minds vigorously examine the authenticity of a claim...especially on so-called “holy scriptures” and god-inspired writings. As Robert G. Ingersoll has said, “The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubt, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs.”

So why place a wall of separation between the Bible and rational inquiry? Are you trying to hide something? Why not do something different for a change. Read the Bible as you will read other books. Think of it like how you think of other books. Replace the spirit of fear and superstition with a more analyzing thought.

So as a word of advice, to make your allegations more credible @ Revelation, perhaps we could ask you to present us of these so-called materials and myths that distort the “truth” about the Bible. I think it’s better than just pointing fingers.

Oh before I forget, the Israelites on no account became Christians, The 12 tribes of Israel vanished from history before the Romans invaded Palestine in 63 BCE.

Revelation: In view of the aforementioned, what better proof of God's existence do we give unbelievers? Let me share some them.

1. Your walk with God (for believers). Live in holiness and pray for God's miracles to manifest alongside your ministry with other people. People believe as they see God's handiworks. Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit!

2. Proofs that will authenticate the Bible and/or those that will refute fallacious claims against it. You need to make a balanced research by presenting the pros and cons and let unbelievers weigh the facts.

2. Prophecies yet to be fulfilled. There are so many details given in the Bible about the future or the end times. List down all of those and see them happen accurately in the days ahead. List of fulfilled prophecies will also help.

I think the challenge was address to the “Christian believers”. So I really won’t give too much of thought to this, but...

In your statement number 1, this is too relative. Not all Christians “walk in holiness”, but mostly they “walk in foolishness”. Even televangelist preachers seem to neglect this so-called “Christian virtue”.

Let’s take a look @ Revelation’s issue concerning miracles. Miracles are really not a convincing tool to prove god existence. Now let us say a miracle happened. The question will be how will you prove to a non-believer that the cause of this ‘miracle’ is god? The existence of a miracle (if there are any?) only provide inductive support to theism if the existence of a miracle is more probable relative to theism and the background information than it is relative to the negation of theism and the background information. But it is not at all clear then that it is, therefore the argument from miracle fails. (Source: Atheism: A philosophical justification by Michael Martin)

2. I leave the challenge of authenticating the Bible to you @ Revelation. Just show me your proofs and claims so we can start scrutinizing every word that you’re going to lob at me.

And 3 give me a list of these so-called “fulfilled prophecies” and I’ll give you a longer list of unfulfilled prophesies which will also include your list as stated in the Bible. I appropriately call these as “wishful thinking” and severe cases of selective reading.

So...I guess I’ll just wish you all the luck @ Revelation. But please consider that if all you can give me are prattles and pointless “proofs”, then I guess it’s a waste of my time to continue to talk about Christian gobbledygook and baseless propagandas.